March 2012

On March 29, 2012, Tran Thi Thuy Lieu was convicted of the
murder of her husband, journalist Le Hoang Hung,
after a one-day trial in southern Long An province. Hung died January 30, 2011,
after he was set ablaze while sleeping in his home in Tan An, news reports
said. Reports said Lieu, who had suffered gambling losses, was motivated by her
husband's refusal to sell their home.

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New York, March 30, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns attacks and threats against several journalists covering the aftermath of the March 22 military coup in
Mali that ousted President Amadou Toumani Touré.

Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat is wielding his pen once more. According to news reports, the famous cartoonist, who suffered a severe beating in August, has regained 90 percent of the movement in his hands, which were deliberately targeted by his attackers before they dumped him on the side of a road.

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New York, March 30, 2012--Authorities in Chongqing must
clarify the status of a journalist who reports say was secretly sentenced to
prison in 2010 for criticizing a government official in a personal blog, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ has not been able to
independently confirm the journalist's jail sentence or his whereabouts.

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New
York, March 30, 2012--Authorities must conduct a thorough and effective
investigation into the attack on the publisher of a Latvian news website that
had run a number of sensitive stories, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today.

After the rash of political revolutions and criminal attacks
on governments and companies last year, it wasn't hard to predict that 2012
would be the year of a cybercrime crackdown. The United States is considering
its own cybercrime legislation, and the European Union is seeking to
harmonize its member state's computer crime laws. Governments understandably
want to prevent further online attacks. Journalists suffer these attacks also,
but they don't necessarily gain from fiercer laws. And in the case of a
proposed new cybercrime law in Iraq, they may face life imprisonment for simply
doing their job.

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Just ahead of this weekend's highly anticipated Burma
by-elections, opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi today denounced
the vote as not "free and fair." Indeed, Thein Sein government's
harassment of opposition media in the run-up to the polls raises disturbing
questions about the country's reputed new democratic direction after decades of
repressive military rule.

Last week's unexpected coup d'etat in Mali
somewhat overshadowed, in the international news cycle, a relatively peaceful
transition of power in the neighboring democracy of Senegal. In a second-round
vote, opposition leader Macky Sall on Sunday defeated his former mentor,
85-year-old incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade; and while European Union
observers deplored some irregularities, they largely praised the election
and the Senegalese news media for a "positive role" in informing voters.

New York, March 29,
2012--Ugandan police officers attacked three journalists as they covered
the release on bail of jailed opposition leader Kizza Besigye on Wednesday,
according to news reports. The journalists are seeking medical treatment for
their injuries.

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New Delhi-based Tehelka
weekly news magazine has published a scathing
indictment of the police investigation into the 2011 killing of Mumbai
crime reporter Jyotirmoy
Dey--and of the Indian media's coverage of it. Beneath the allegations
and the rumors, we still don't know exactly why he was killed, while the
self-confessed mastermind is a fugitive from justice. Meanwhile, a second
journalist has been indicted for the crime on apparently flimsy evidence.

New
York, March 29, 2012--Iranian authorities have imprisoned two additional
journalists as part of their three-year-long crackdown on the press, according
to news reports. In addition, the BBC reported that its Web services had been
targeted by a distributed denial-of-service attack, which the broadcaster
believed originated from the Iranian regime.

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News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, March 2012

Landmark legislation in Mexico

After years of advocacy by CPJ and other press freedom
groups, Mexico's senate finally approved
legislation ensuring the punishment of anti-press crimes. Mexican President
Felipe Calderón had promised
a CPJ delegation in 2008 and again in 2010 that he would get the measure
implemented, and on March 13, the legislation was passed.

The achievement--which gives federal authorities jurisdiction
over crimes against "journalists, people, or outlets that affects, limits, or
impinges upon the right to information and freedom of expression and the
press"--should go a long way toward bringing justice for the more than 40
Mexican journalists killed
since 2006.

During the passing of the bill on the senate floor, CPJ's
Mexico representative, Mike O'Connor, was lauded by the senate for CPJ's
contribution to making the law a reality. This heartening victory, however,
does not signify a defeat of impunity. It is only one
step toward bringing to justice the killers of Mexican journalists who must
be tried and sentenced.

Last week, South Sudan's ruling party secretary-general, Pagan Amum, won
an important court battle, absolving him of allegations that he received a $30
million corrupt payment in 2006. The accusations came from former Finance Minister
Arthur Akuien Chol, who alleged earlier this year that he had received orders
from "above" to transfer the public money, according to local
reports. The court acquitted Amum based on insufficient evidence. The money,
however, remains unaccounted for, according to local
reports. And the odds of any journalist in South Sudan investigating the
matter further are slim.

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New
York, March 28, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply
disappointed that a U.N. plan to promote journalist safety and curb impunity in
journalist killings was not endorsed during UNESCO's 28th biennial session held
in Paris.

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The investigation into the notorious murder of muckraking
Philippine journalist Marlene
Garcia-Esperat in Mindanao is now seven
years old. A separate hunt for conspirators in the January 2011 killing of
Palawan radio journalist Gerardo
Ortega is just getting started. The Regional Trial Court in Puerto Princesa
City issued arrest warrants against three suspects in the Ortega case on
Tuesday, and one has been arrested, according to the local Center for Media
Freedom and Responsibility. But both cases should already have been solved.

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Editor's note: In a follow-up report published on April 19, 2012, CPJ found questions about the journalistic credentials of the deceased.

New York, March 27, 2012--Syrian security forces shot and killed two freelance international journalists and wounded a third during an attack on Monday in the town
of Darkoush near the Turkish border, according to news reports and a witness
interviewed by CPJ.

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New York, March 27, 2012--Mexican authorities
must investigate attacks on a newspaper and TV station in the northeastern
state of Tamaulipas and ensure the offices and its staff members are protected,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Both attacks occurred within
the space of one week.

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The sacking
of Chongqing party leader Bo Xilai has sparked some entertaining gossip this
month, leaving journalists covering China with the difficult task of reporting on
unconfirmed reports. The Chinese government blames the international media, not
its own lack of transparency and comprehensive censorship apparatus, for the
burgeoning rumors.

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New York, March 26,
2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Sunday's shooting of
radio journalist Mohyadin
Hassan Mohamed in the capital, Mogadishu, and calls on authorities to
ensure his safety.

Two unknown gunmen
opened fire on Mohamed, the news director of Shabelle Media Network's radio
station, as he walked home from work at around 6 p.m., news reports said. The
journalist told CPJ that he ran after the gunmen began shooting at him, and
that one bullet grazed his chest.

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New York, March 26, 2012--The decision by a Venezuelan
court to forbid the press from reporting on issues of water contamination
without using a government-approved report is a clear attempt by authorities to
censor critical information, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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New York, March 26, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is outraged by the one-month suspension of pro-Kurdish daily Özgür
Gündem, and calls on the Turkish government to allow the newspaper to function.

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This combination of pictures shows a policeman beating Agence France-Presse photojournalist Patricia de Melo Moreira during a Portuguese general strike in downtown Lisbon yesterday, according to Reuters. The strikers were protesting economic austerity measures. A number of Melo's photos from the strike can be viewed on the Guardian's website.

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In the wake of the U.N. Human Rights Council resolution
calling for an investigation into Sri Lanka's alleged abuses of international
humanitarian law during its war with Tamil separatists, the government has
resorted to outright threats of violence against journalists who might dare to
return home after taking part in the Geneva discussions.

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Yesterday, while reporting on breaking news in Mali from studios in Atlanta, CNN Wire Newsdesk Editor Faith Karimi made an ominous observation that presaged the outcome of developments unfolding 5,000 miles away. "#Mali president @PresidenceMali has not tweeted in 10 hours after reports of gunfire and a coup attempt," she tweeted.

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New
York, March 22, 2012--Turkish authorities must immediately dismiss the new
criminal investigation against journalist Ahmet Şık and should thoroughly
investigate threats made against Şık and investigative journalist Nedim Şener,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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New
York, March 22, 2012--The Sri Lankan government must immediately halt its
intimidation of journalists who supported the adoption of a U.N. Human
Rights Council
resolution calling for an investigation into the country's alleged abuses of
international humanitarian law during its war with Tamil separatists.

At Columbia University on Monday evening, CPJ board member Ahmed Rashid held forth to a full house
in a conversation with Steve Coll about U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. If you're reading this blog, there's most likely no need to explain
who Rashid is--or Coll, for that matter. The earliest reference
I could find on cpj.org to Rashid dated back to 2000, about events in 1999, when he
was the Islamabad bureau chief for the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review. His latest book, Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan,
is the most recent installment in a steady stream of trenchant, reliable,
reality-based analysis of geopolitical affairs in Central and South Asia. If
you need to be convinced, check out Foreign
Policy's list of Top 100 Global Thinkers.

A video of the event, which was co-sponsored by CPJ, is now available here.

March 22, 2012 10:00 AM ET

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New York, March 21,
2012--Kenyan authorities should hold responsible police officers who
assaulted three reporters last week and drop a baseless legal case against one
of them, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Veteran Somali radio journalist Hassan Mohamed, 45, died early
yesterday morning in Eastleigh, a Nairobi suburb. He had fled Mogadishu in
2010, having been threatened, kidnapped, and shot twice. One of hundreds of
Somali refugees in Kenya, many of them journalists, Hassan struggled to support
himself and survive worsening diabetes-related ailments, despite relentless
support from Somali colleagues and friends, including CPJ. His death highlights
the plight of exiled journalists in East Africa.

New York, March 21, 2012--An Israeli soldier broke the camera of a
Palestinian journalist on Friday as the photographer was covering an
anti-settlement demonstration near Bethlehem, a city in the West Bank,
according to news reports.

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New
York, March 21, 2012--The editor of the Salvadoran news
website El
Farosays
his staff members have been followed after the site reported on a criminal network
involving politicians. In addition, he said a senior government official told
the staff last week that gang members were angered by coverage of alleged ties
between law enforcement officials and local gangs, and might retaliate.

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New York, March 20, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists calls on Gabon's authorities to drop legal proceedings against six
journalists in connection with articles raising questions about use of a presidential
plane. Two of the journalists have fled the country fearing arrest after being
summoned by police for interrogation.

New
York, March 20, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assault
and detention of Syrian journalist Rudy Othman by security forces and calls on
authorities to release him immediately.

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New
York, March 20, 2012--A Kuwait appellate court should overturn a March 12 ruling
that suspended a private newspaper for three months and sentenced its editor to
a six-month prison term for articles defending the country's Shiite minority,
the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Who killed Floribert Chebeya, the president of the leading DRC human rights
group La Voix des Sans Voix, and his driver, Fidèle Bazana, in June 2010
in Kinshasa? A few runaway police officers, according to the military tribunal
that judged the case and issued its sentences one year later. A few bad apples,
who acted on their own, without any order from their hierarchy.

The political ouster of Bo Xilai, Chinese Communist Party
top dog in the major southwestern city of Chongqing, has been making headlines
around the world. Bo notoriously silenced critics like investigative journalist
Jiang Weiping, but the shoe
is now on the other foot, at least for a while.

Many China watchers are familiar with Bo because he was in
line for a position in the inner circle of Chinese politics, until state media
announced his replacement last week. CPJ has reported on Bo for different
reasons. Jiang, CPJ's 2001 International Press Freedom Award winner, spent five
years behind bars in China, after revealing several corruption scandals
involving Bo, a former mayor of Dalian city and then governor of the province,
Liaoning, where Jiang worked.

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New York, March 19, 2012--A Nigerian
journalist who has extensively covered the conflict between the government and
Islamist sect Boko Haram says his life is under threat.

Ahmad Salkida, an independent journalist,
told CPJ that he noticed a white 4X4 Hilux with a Lagos state registration
number following him on Thursday for several hours, including to his house in Abuja,
the Nigerian capital. He said he has also received phone threats from anonymous
callers in the past few days that he believes are coming from government security
agents in connection to his contacts with Boko Haram. "They said I am a Boko
Haram member, that me and them are not supposed to exist. That they know where
I live and they will visit me," Salkida told CPJ.

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Igor Vinyavsky, editor of the
independent weekly Vzglyad, was freed
from a Kazakhstan prison on March 15, 2012, on the orders of an Almaty court,
according to news reports. The journalist had spent two months in pretrial
detention after being arrested by the KNB, Kazakhstan's
security service, news reports said.

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Lhamo Tso has not spoken to her husband Dhondup
Wangchen since March 17, 2008. She,
their four children, and his elderly parents live in India, and hear of him only
when his sister visits the Xichuan Prison in Qinghai province, western China,
where he is serving six years. Through glass, he passes on the news: He's
contracted hepatitis, though the prison won't let the family pay for proper
medical treatment. He's working less -- promoted from 17-hour days in a brick
kiln to manufacturing acupuncture needles. His two lawyers have been told their
Beijing-based firm will be put out of business if they continue to work on his
case.

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New York, March 16, 2012--Three Saudi Web managers whose
sites cover political unrest in the country's highly restricted Eastern
Province should be released from detention immediately, the Committee to
Protect Journalists said today.

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Paulo Pinheiro, the
chair of the International
Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, is a
seasoned diplomat trained in the tradition of Brazil's foreign affairs
ministry, Itamaraty, with its celebrated emphasis on impartial mediation, dialogue,
and strong skepticism toward foreign intervention to resolve international
conflicts.

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New York, March 15, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists holds
Syrian authorities responsible for the safety and well-being of Turkish
journalists Adem Özköse and Hamit Coşkun, who are believed to be in government
custody, and calls for their immediate release. The journalists were last heard
from five days ago, according to news reports.

New York, March 15, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is outraged by the illegal foreign travel ban on at least four independent
journalists in Belarus, and calls on the government of Aleksandr Lukashenko to
immediately restore their freedom of movement.

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On March 9, Sri Lanka's military authorities told all news
and media organizations that they would have to get prior approval before
releasing text or SMS news alerts containing any news about the military or
police.

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New
York, March 14, 2012--Azerbaijani authorities must carry out a swift investigation
into the ongoing smear campaign against journalist Khadija Ismailova, ensure
her safety, and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today.

A report on the first anniversary of the Syrian uprising

Weeks of sporadic protests seeking government reform burst into
full-fledged unrest on March 15, 2011, when thousands of demonstrators gathered
in four Syrian cities. Within days, authorities had cut off news media access
to Daraa, a center of the unrest, beginning a sustained effort to shut down international
news coverage of the uprising and the government's increasingly violent
crackdown. As the civilian death toll has reached well into the thousands,
according to U.N. figures, the last four months have taken a particularly dark
turn for the press. Eight
local and international journalists have been killed on duty since November, at
least five in circumstances that raise questions about government culpability. Yet
one year after the Syrian uprising began, killing the messenger has not
silenced the message.

Last week, a judge in Senegal convicted a
man of assaulting three journalists outside their newspaper's office in the
capital Dakar last month. The attack was not related to journalism, but the
quick arrest and prosecution of the perpetrator serves as an instructive
contrast between the handling of an ordinary crime and the handling of abuses
against journalists in the line of duty - cases which are usually politicized, stalled,
or both.

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No media outlet critical of President Bingu Wa Mutharika or
the ruling Democratic Progressive Party was spared by the government this past
weekend -- whether print, broadcast, or online. The broadside included a public
campaign to discredit the media as well as threats of fines and arrests of
critical journalists.

New York, March 14, 2012--China has approved revisions to its
criminal code that grants police broad powers to hold journalists and others
who discuss sensitive national issues without chargein secret detention for up to six months, according to news
reports.

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Dear President Johnson Sirleaf: The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by threats made against Liberian journalist Mae Azango, who has been in hiding since last week after she reported on the practice of female genital mutilation. We urge you, Madam President, as Africa's first and only female head of state and a champion of women's rights, to direct the Liberian authorities to ensure her safety and fully investigate the threats made against her.

March 13, 2012 5:46 PM ET

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New
York, March 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists hails the Mexican
Senate's landmark approval today of a constitutional
amendment that, if passed by a majority of states, would federalize anti-press
crimes and transfer investigative powers to national authorities.

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New York, March 13, 2012--After reviewing evidence in the 2011 killing of journalist Gerardo Ortega, the Philippine Department of Justice on Tuesday recommended that murder charges be filed against
ex-governor Joel Reyes in the local courts, news
reports said. In doing so, the department reversed an earlier decision not to pursue charges against Reyes.

Although the accused triggerman, Marlon Recamata, named Reyes
in the murder, a June 2011 Department of Justice investigation found his statement
unsubstantiated, news reports said. Ortega's supporters submitted new evidence
a few weeks later and petitioned for the department to re-investigate, reports said. After reviewing the evidence, the department issued a
recommendation on Tuesday for murder charges to be filed against Reyes in the
Regional Trial Court of Puerto Princesa City, according to news reports.

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New York, March 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists welcomes the Mexican Senate's approval today of a constitutional amendment that makes attacks on the press a federal offense
and calls on authorities to end the widespread impunity for crimes against
journalists.

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Journalists and technologists often speak different
languages. But a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit, Small World News, is bridging the gap with
a new guide on the safe use of satellite phones. It comes at a critical time.

The group's Guide to
Safely Using Satphones just went online, less than three weeks after the deaths
of international journalists Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik in Homs, Syria. Several journalists who worked in Homs
suspected the Syrian government targeted the building where Colvin, Ochlik, and
other journalists were working. If government forces indeed targeted the
building, they could have relied on several forms of intelligence, including the
tracking of journalists' satellite signals.

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Dear President Karzai: We are deeply concerned by the potential repercussions of a March 10 statement released by Ministry of Defense spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi over an article written by The Wall Street Journal reporter Maria Abi-Habib. The statement, which personally attacks the journalist, sends a chilling message to other reporters who write about alleged government misconduct. We call on you to publicly address Azimi's statement and ask all government officials to refrain from attacks on journalists. We also ask you to uphold your commitment to a free press in Afghanistan that you have made many times in the past.

New York, March 12, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists
condemns today's Angolan police raid at the independent weekly Folha 8, which was conducted in
connection with a politicized investigation into the publication of a satirical
photo montage. Officers confiscated all of Folha
8's computers, effectively crippling the operations of one of the country's
two remaining independent publications.

New York, March 12, 2012--The release of Turkish journalists Nedim
Şener, Ahmet Şık, Muhammet Sait Çakır, and Coşkun Musluk, who are among dozens
of journalists imprisoned in Turkey
for alleged participation in a purported antistate plot known as Ergenekon, is
a welcome development, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

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New York, March 12, 2012--Philippine authorities must
immediately launch an investigation into the shooting of journalist Fernan
Angeles, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ is investigating
the motive in the attack, which left the journalist hospitalized in critical
condition today.

With near impunity in the murders of journalists a
persistent reason for the terror and self-censorship among Mexican news
organizations, legislators say the national Senate is on the verge of passing a
constitutional amendment that would allow federal authorities to take over
cases of crimes against freedom of expression. Passage would mean that the
typically less corrupt and more effective federal police and prosecutors would move
aside state authorities to tackle cases of murdered journalists or those living
under threat.

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To many in the Indian media community, the arrest of independent
journalist Syed Mohammad Kazmi by the Delhi police's Special Cell on March 6
for his alleged involvement in a bombing brings back troublesome memories.

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New York, March 9, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists calls on Liberian authorities to ensure the safety of journalists who
have been repeatedly threatened for exposing the practice of female genital
mutilation in the country.

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New York, March 9, 2012--Egyptian authorities should immediately
dismiss a baseless complaint of antistate activities that has been lodged against
several journalists, the
Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The case has been referred to
military prosecutors as part of a broader practice that has raised
constitutional and international concerns.

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Freelance photographer Abdalla Bargash had accompanied Kenya's
permanent secretary for transport, Cyrus Njiru, to cover a meeting with Lamu
community members over the newly constructed Lamu
port. The Kililana Farmers' Association are concerned that the major construction
on the once-sleepy island of Lamu off Kenya's coast could encroach on their
farmland.

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New York, March 8,
2012--A vote by a commission of UNESCO's executive board to rename the discredited Obiang prize is a blow to the credibility of the
organization, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Meeting in Paris,
the commission voted to change the name of the prize to "International
UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea Prize" and for UNESCO to move ahead with the implementation.

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New York, March 8, 2012--Guinean authorities must
investigate and bring appropriate charges against police officers who assaulted
a journalist at the Central Bank of Guinea, the Committee to Protect
Journalists said today. Reporter Kounkou Mara suffered head and other injuries
in the attack.

Mara, a reporter for the privately owned Le Lynx, was denied entry to the Central
Bank of Guinea on February 27 despite presenting her press identity card to
officers and saying she was scheduled to interview the bank's governor, according
to news
reports. Officials told her she posed a security threat to the bank
employees, then a commanding officer ordered her to be ejected, the journalist told
a local newspaper.

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New York, March 8, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the threats made against Khadija Ismailova, an Azerbaijani
journalist known for her investigations into high-level corruption, including
secret, offshore businesses of President Ilham Aliyev's family.

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A unified front is crucial when facing a crisis in press
freedom like that in the violent state of Sinaloa in Mexico, Colombian
journalist and CPJ board member María Teresa Ronderos said this week. She was
speaking to a packed room of print, radio, and television reporters; members of
civil society groups; state legislators; union leaders; human rights activists;
and even ordinary citizens, who had gathered for a discussion on the press in
one of Mexico's most dangerous cities, Culiacán.

China media analysts are looking to two significant events
to shape coverage this month: The anniversary of a failed uprising in Tibet,
and the annual meetings of China's top political bodies, the National People's
Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.
Journalists at work in both areas attracted coverage of their own today--but from
vastly different angles.

New York,
March 7, 2012--A reporter covering a post-election protest in Moscow suffered a
concussion after being assaulted by police, the most serious of at least three
attacks on journalists reporting on demonstrations on Monday, news reports
said. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the assaults and calls on
police to hold the assailants accountable under the law.

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New York, March 7, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists calls on authorities in Togo to investigate a report that police assaulted
a photojournalist on Friday after he took photos of officers seizing a motorcycle
during a protest, according to media reports
and local journalists.

Koffi Djidonou Frédéric Attipou, a photojournalist with the weekly Le Canard Indépendant and the biweekly magazine Sika, told CPJ he was covering a protest over government human rights violations when he turned his camera to police confiscating a demonstrator's motorcycle nearby. Togolese police, facing numerous allegations of heavy-handed and abusive tactics, have had a number of recent confrontations with journalists covering their activities, according to news accounts and CPJ research.

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New York, March 7, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is dismayed by the Turkish prime minister's repeated use of CPJ
statistics to misrepresent and undermine the serious repression faced by
journalists in Turkey.

I'm in Culiacán, the capital of the Mexican state of
Sinaloa. Part of my work here has been to investigate and highlight the
cyber-attacks that the award-winning weekly local newsmagazine Ríodoce has encountered in its coverage
of the violent drugs war here.

But discussing the experiences of online editors at other
publications here has shown just how intertwined the Net, the work of
reporters, and the drug war have become.

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New York, March 6, 2012--A large crowd attacked a group of about
100 Indian journalists covering local election results in the northern state of
Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday and damaged their equipment, according to news
reports. The journalists were forced to lock themselves in a school for several
hours to protect themselves from the violence, news reports said.

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New York, March 6, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns Sunday's attack in Venezuela on Globovisión journalists
covering an opposition political rally that came under gunfire. The station reported that assailants,
who wore the red shirts associated with supporters of President Hugo Chávez,
threatened the journalists and stole their equipment.

For a few weeks after the overthrow of President Hosni
Mubarak, it looked as if Egypt might do the unthinkable and do away with the
ministry of information. New publications and TV stations sprouted up,
newspaper circulation soared, and a new breed of citizen journalists and bloggers
opened a space for reporting and comment that a year earlier would have led to
a jail sentence.

For a growing number of independent journalists and bloggers, the memory of that press freedom euphoria is as hazy as the Cairo skyline.

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New York, March 6, 2012--The
Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of Indian journalist
Rajesh Mishra in the central state of Madhya Pradesh. Mishra
is the second journalist killed in Madhya Pradesh in a month.

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New York, March 5, 2012--A Web editor in the southern
Chinese city of Foshan was jailed for 10 days after reposting an unconfirmed
report that two local officials had been caught with
prostitutes, according to Chinese and international news reports.

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New York, March 5, 2012--Authorities
in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia shut down an independent
radio broadcaster and arrested the station's director over coverage of fighting
between the government and Al-Shabaab militants, local journalists said.

Around 10:20 p.m. Saturday, armed police arriving in two vehicles raided Codka Nabadda (Voice of Peace) in the port city of Bossasso, confiscated equipment, and sealed the studios, local journalists told the Committee to Protect Journalists. An hour later, police raided the home of the station's director, Awke Abdullahi, and are holding him at the Bossasso Central Police Station. He has not been charged, although it is not legal in Puntland to hold a suspect for more than 48 hours without charge.

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New York, March 5,
2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the murder of a
former Somali journalist who was shot on Sunday in the semi-autonomous region
of Puntland. The victim, Ali Ahmed Abdi, had recently resigned as a manager for
a news outlet that has come under attack by Al-Shabaab insurgents.

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New York, March 5, 2012--Kuwaiti authorities must lift their
suspension of the privately owned newspaper Al-Dar and drop antistate
charges lodged in connection with articles that sought to defend the country's
Shiite minority, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

The state of press freedom inside the European Union has
a significant effect on press freedom outside
the EU. That was the message that CPJ Senior European Adviser Jean-Paul Marthoz
and I delivered this week when Brussels' leading think tank, the European Policy Center (EPC), hosted us for a
policy dialogue marking the launch of our annual survey, Attacks
on the Press.

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Russia's leading independent media head into
Sunday's elections--in which Vladimir Putin is expected to be handed his third
presidential term--burdened by a series of warnings. Over the past few
months, beginning with the parliamentary elections held December 4, Kremlin
allies have taken several steps designed to put news outlets on alert for uncensored
coverage of nationwide protests, in which a surprising number of Russians have demanded
an end to elections fraud and called on Putin to step down from his current
post of prime minister.

New York, March 2, 2012--Ten Indian journalists were reported
injured today after being attacked by a group of lawyers outside a court in the
city of Bangalore, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the attack and calls on authorities to conduct an
immediate investigation.

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Village elections taking place this weekend in southern
Guangdong province's Wukan illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of China's media
control. Censorship measures have not prevented strong domestic and
international coverage of the democratic process. But has official tolerance of
dissenting views increased since leaders cracked down on the attempted Jasmine
revolution last year? Or is Wukan not a real challenge to one-party rule, and
therefore OK to write about?

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New York, March, 1, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists welcomes the news that two French journalists injured in Homs last
week have reached
safety in Lebanon. "We are relieved that Edith Bouvier and William Daniels are now safe but are concerned that the Syrian government's assault on Homs has made it impossible to retrieve the bodies of our colleagues Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. "We remain deeply concerned for the safety of all Syrian journalists who are risking their lives to report on the unrest across the country."

Last month, Pakistan's government put out requests for
proposals for a massive, centralized, Internet censorship system. Explaining
that "ISPs and backbone providers have expressed their inability to block
millions of undesirable web sites using current manual blocking systems,"
the state-run National Information Communications Technology Research and
Development Fund said it therefore requires "a national URL filtering and
blocking system."

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New York, March 1, 2012--Sudanese authorities must halt
their efforts to silence news coverage of opposition leadership, the Committee
to Protect Journalists said today. Authorities have already closed three
newspapers in 2012 and confiscated thousands of copies, CPJ research shows.

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New York, March 1, 2012--At
least two journalists were injured and another five suffered the effects of
tear gas while covering violent clashes between police and residents of the
northeastern city of Quba, according to news reports and CPJ sources.

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Beijing-based blogger Woeser reported on her website Invisible Tibet today that she has been
confined to her residence by Beijing public security officers who are stationed
outside her home. Woeser, an outspoken critic of Chinese government policies in
Tibet, has written about a series of recent self-immolations among
monks and arrests
of writers in western China.

On the evening of March 1, 2010, Arun Singhaniya, owner
of Janakpur Today newspaper and
Janakpur Today Radio, stepped out of a prayer service during a holy celebration
in Janakpur, Nepal's second largest city. A gunman on a motorcycle shot
and killed the news proprietor, making him the second person affiliated
with the Janakpur Today news group to be murdered within a year.